The 2019 MEP elections gave us a few pointers as we have already discussed in previous articles. I am not one easy to impress but one of the surprises I observed in these elections are certain skills of Hon Silvio Schembri which  I must say I had not noticed before. He may have had some good preparation and if he did then it was an excellent job.

Particularly during a speech, some two weeks before voting day, Silvio Schembri did an excellent show. He had the right tone of voice throughout his speech where he peaked in the most important parts in his message. He had the right body movements which complemented his speech tone which hit the audience present and that at home watching or hearing through the media. Sincerely, he reminded me of Joseph Muscat some years back and indeed I did close my eyes to see if my impression was correct. He is either being trained by Muscat team or else he is doing it all by himself in a fantastic manner.

Silvio Schembri is certainly an ambitious person and there is no news about this. However, he is also a visionary who surrounds himself by doers with priorities. This Junior Minister as his people like to call him, has certainly the energy and ambition to take Malta forward in certain sectors. He has also demonstrated leadership skills on various fronts whereby he got an industry following him.

Not all is rosy though. Sometimes, his maybe obsession to ensure that whatever he moves on gets done does not let him see things that may be damaging what he has been doing. In this his own people are wrong as well as they are not vociferous enough with him to make him realise that if he addresses certain issues, than he will gain inroads faster although with the risk of not necessarily succeeding the way one wishes.

To be fair, Silvio Schembri seems also to be the blue eyed boy at Castille and most probably he had a good push from persons like Keith Schembri. However, whether he was assisted or not , one needs to recognise his sklls, capibilities and stamina.

What possibly works against him is that he is relatively young. It may work with the general public but it is obvious that he lacks certain experience and this may not always be to his advantage in the eyes of international fora. It may work against him also at Cabinet or Delegate level  if he targets Party leadership.  That would be ground breaking !

As expressed previously I feel that it is not the right time for Muscat to vacate the post in spite of him repeating this plenty of times. Perhaps Muscat could choose to help this Junior Minister to make inroads further, gain experience and perhaps become the youngest Prime Minister in History .